Shilo Rosenwaser

Research Interests

Redox regulation of metabolism, stress acclimation, and cell death in photosynthetic organisms.

As sessile organisms that grow under highly variable environmental conditions,
plants must constantly sense, respond, and adapt to fluctuation in their
environment. Many aspects of adaptation to environmental conditions are believed
to be regulated by ROS/redox signals which differ in temporal, spatial and
intensity patterns in photosynthetic cells. Oxidation and reduction of thiol
proteins, in which their biochemical characteristics changed upon oxidation, is
thought to be the major mechanism by which redox signals are integrated into
cellular signal transduction pathways.

My group is interested in understanding how signals linked to environmental
conditions are translated into alteration in the cellular redox state, sensed by
redox sensors, and transmitted into biological pathways to maintain homeostasis
by coordinating cellular activities. We are using genetics and functional
genomics tools, together with genetically-encoded fluorescent redox sensors and
novel quantitative redox proteomics approach. Our primary objective is to
systematically decipher and characterize the redox-based signal transduction
pathways involved in sensing and acclimating to environmental conditions in
plants. We believe that uncovering the plant redox-sensitive protein network
will pave the way to produce plants with higher productivity and tolerance to
stress.